The Greek House: The Story of a Painter's Love Affair with the Island of Sifnos - Softcover

Brechneff, Christian; Lovejoy, Tim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374535264 ISBN 13: 9780374535261

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015

Synopsis

A richly rewarding narrative about a young painter's love affair with the Greek island of Sifnos

When Christian Brechneff first set foot on the Greek island of Sifnos, it was the spring of 1972 and he was a twenty-one-year-old painter searching for artistic inspiration and a quiet place to work. There, this Swiss child of Russian émigrés, adrift and confused about his sexuality, found something extraordinary. In Sifnos, he found a muse, a subject he was to paint for years, and a sanctuary.
In The Greek House, Brechneff tells a funny, touching narrative about his relationship to Sifnos, writing with warmth about its unforgettable residents and the house he bought in a hilltop farm village. This is the story of how he fell in love with Greece, and how it became a haven from the complexities of his life in Western Europe and New York. It is the story of his village and of the island during the thirty-odd years he owned the house―from a time when there were barely any roads, to the arrival of the modern world with its tourists and high-speed boats and the euro. And it is the story of the end of the love affair―how the island changed and he changed, how he discovered he had outgrown Sifnos, or couldn't grow there anymore.
The Greek House is a celebration of place and an honest narrative of self-discovery. In its pages, a naïve and inexperienced young man comes into his own. Weaving himself into the life of the island, painting it year after year, he finds a place he can call home.

About this title

About the Authors

Born in the former Belgian Congo in 1950, Christian Brechneff was educated in Switzerland, England, and the United States. In 1975, he received his master of art degree from the Royal College of Art in London. He shows regularly in Basel and Zurich, and Three Oceans, his one-man show in New York in 2001, was with Salander-O’Reilly Galleries. He is also the author of Homage: Encounters with the East, a book of travel drawings published in 2007.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374535264
• ISBN 13: 9780374535261
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304